HP's Bradley Urges Board To Act Quickly In PC Spin-Off

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Todd Bradley, the hard-charging executive vice president of Hewlett Packard's Personal Systems Group (PSG), is encouraging HP's board of directors to move quickly to spin out the company's $40 billion PC unit into a "standalone, publicly held" business that will remain what he called the largest and most profitable PC company in the world.

Bradley, who took the helm of the PC business six years ago and put in place a strategy that moved HP from No. 2 in the PC market to No. 1, is going on the offensive to drive what he is calling "speed and clarity" around a publicly-held HP PC business spin-off.

To that end, Bradley said in an exclusive, wide-ranging 45-minute interview with CRN that he is determined to move as "fast as we can" to get the spin-off completed to eliminate the clouds of "uncertainty" that are hanging over both PSG and HP.

Bradley's message to the board: "Go! Go! Go! We have got to make an announcement. We have got to get this done. We have got to settle the uncertainty in the marketplace broadly for HP. Not just for PSG. The uncertainty is causing ripples across our business. And we have worked too hard to build what we have to open doors for other people to come in."

That is just what is happening in the sales trenches, partners say, with competitors like Dell swooping in to try to sway partners and customers that are re-evaluating purchases that were in the sales pipeline before HP's board of directors announced on Aug. 18 that HP was evaluating strategic alternatives for PSG including the "separation of the PC business into a separate company through a spin-off or other transaction."

HP has said that it expects the "process" around a PSG separation could take as long as 12 months to 18 months. Bradley, for his part, said he is pushing to get the spin-off done "as fast as we can." And, he added, "no matter what the timing is our support for growing our business is unscathed, is unflappable."

Bradley acknowledged that he can not provide an iron-clad guarantee that PSG will be spun out as a publicly held stand-alone business, but he left little doubt that he is fighting within HP for just that outcome, and made it clear that he wants to run the spin-off.